Indeed, I’ve often said that it is not copyright that is broken, but its erstwhile supporters – who are no longer able to sustain their indoctrination that copyright is a fundamentally good thing.

There is no common law behind copyright. That was one of James Madison’s little lies, I mean ‘misunderstandings’.

The legislative morass of this cancerous privilege, unethically abridging the people’s natural liberty, can indeed be swept away, firstly by popular disobedience, and secondly by a simple act of abolition, when eventually, like blasphemy, the idea of prosecuting someone for an act of copying or communicating their own culture (without the copyright holder’s permission) is immediately recognised as bizarrely illiberal if not unjust and superstitious.

Copyright will burn more brightly as popular disobedience increases (the cartel will not hesitate to exhaust their funds in their futile struggle to retain their privilege). This may well fool some people into thinking that copyright will ‘win’, that perhaps they were silly for thinking copyright was in decline, that it is simply undergoing disruptive change and will emerge pristine – into a law that people gladly respect and obey.